”His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceedingly great and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity; for if these things are in you, and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacks these things is blind and cannot see afar off, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
Wherefore rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things, you shall never fall;” (NC 2 Peter 1:1–3, KJV 2 Peter 1:1–10)
Those who dedicate themselves to following Jesus, are given ”exceedingly great and precious promises”. What are these promises? What are these promises designed to do? Peter explains the “by these you might be partakers of the divine nature”. Receiving ”exceedingly great and precious promises” is designed to make the possessors partake of the divine nature for themselves.
By receiving these promises and partaking of their fruits, a disciple will ”escape the corruption that is in the world through lust”. What does that mean? Perhaps a whole sermon could be written on this by itself. Being transformed by faith in the promises of God moves a person from treasuring the desires of the world, to treasuring things which neither moth nor rust can corrupt and thieves cannot break through and steal. If a person no longer lusts after the things of this world, what then is their treasure? Peter points to partaking of the divine nature instead.
What is a divine nature? Peter gives a simple explanation for it with what follows. ”Add to your faith, virtue”. What begins with trusting promises from God (faith) is to lead to virtue. In this context, virtue may simply be acting on the promises. It’s not enough to think upon the promises. It needs to go down deep enough to motivate action consistent with these promises.
When virtue is added to faith, the result is knowledge. As Jesus said, ”if any man will do … he shall know”* (KJV John 7:17, NC John 6:4). The way to know is to do. Taking action leads to knowledge. The gospel is not just an idea. It requires action, then comes knowledge.
Obtaining knowledge is to be followed by temperance. What is temperance? Why must temperance follow knowledge? Knowledge can make a person proud. Knowledge without temperance is basically just arrogance. Knowledge is supposed to make someone more useful or a better servant to their fellow man. Knowing something that many people do not know must be accompanied by humility in order to be of any real value in service to others. Temperance is the humility and meekness required to use knowledge to better serve. One who is meek can know the weakness of another and not take advantage of them or exploit it (see LDS Ether 12:26, NC Ether 5:5).
Patience is to follow temperance. Patience is required because if you’re going to serve others with humility and meekness, and not force feed and shove it down their throats, it’s not going to happen very fast. There is going to be some rejection and disappointments along the way. It’s going to take some time before any humble service may even begin to show results.
Then alas, after much laboring with patience and meek service, there comes the long awaited fruit when another encounters God for themselves. This is what godliness is all about. Godliness requires God. Any form of godliness that can exist without God is meaningless. There is no real power in it. True godliness comes only with a genuine encounter with the Divine.
When another has the same encounter with God, there naturally follows a brotherly kindness between them as both are born of God. This bond can grow into an even deeper level, which is charity. It is the kind of love where a man will even lay down his life for his friend (KJV John 15:13, NC John 9:11).
If these things are in you, if they are not just ideas but actually reflect a character that is acquired through diligent experience, such a person is not barren of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Such a person is a partaker of the divine nature. All of the experiences along the way become a type or a shadow of the experiences of Jesus himself. Having similar experiences developing this character makes a person able to bare much fruit and abound in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in doing these things, it is in being the disciple and acquiring the character that these verses describe, that ensures that such a person will never fall.